


(buy your love by playing make believe.)

by softly (alexenglish)



Series: the worst four letter word (fate.) [1]
Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fate & Destiny, M/M, Parallel Universes, Zayn Leaves One Direction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-30 00:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12642555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexenglish/pseuds/softly
Summary: I would love you more if you were someone who could love me.





	(buy your love by playing make believe.)

**Author's Note:**

> [a softer world project](http://queerlyalex.tumblr.com/asofterworld)

 

Louis says, “It doesn’t have to be like this. You don’t have to leave.”

But they both know it’s a lie. They know what will happen and they know what _won’t_ happen, and they know Zayn won’t stay.

Zayn won’t stay because he’s suffocating. Because all he sees is a ghost reflected in the tour bus windows. He doesn’t recognize his hands when he holds them in front of him. He doesn’t recognize his eyes when looks in the mirror.

He doesn’t know who this person stood in front of Louis, fighting with Louis is.

Always fighting with Louis these days.

“You know that isn’t true,” Zayn mumbles. His voice is low, exhausted from the redundancy of this conversation.

“You could try,” Louis says. Some days he pleads it, some days he spits it out like his distaste for Zayn’s decision is tar on the inside of his mouth. Today is one of those days. Zayn imagines the words, thick and black, hanging in the empty air between them.

There are meters between them. Louis stood near the door, Zayn’s keycard clenched in his fist. Still a suit, even though his feet are bare. Tie undone, hair pushed off his sweaty face. He was out with Liam, drinking and dancing.

Now, he’s here. Angry at Zayn.

“I’ve been trying,” Zayn says. He’s been holding on. Hoping for a saving grace. Pushing his luck. Against fate, no less. He’s been _trying_ , but this is a universe where he tries and doesn’t succeed, and they both know it.

There is a universe where it’s hard, but he pulls through. There’s a universe where he holds on until hiatus and there aren’t masses of people waiting to hurl racial slurs at him wherever he goes. There’s a universe where he makes it through OTRA, until the X-Factor finale. Where he stays golden until that final bow.

In that universe, he’s usually the first person to put out solo music, but in that universe there are less people who hate him for it. In that universe, Louis doesn’t hate him for it. Louis doesn’t resent him. Louis doesn’t spend a year pissed off at fate and taking it out on Zayn.

There’s a universe where he and Louis don’t ever fight. Not before, not after. There’s a universe where Louis’ push for creative control over their music gives Zayn some room to add his own style. In that universe, he and Louis are the ones who end up writing together. They’re the ones hunched over Zayn’s computer picking apart melodies.

In that universe, Zayn kisses Louis in 2013 on the floor of Louis’ hotel room whilst they look over Zayn’s lyrics. He does it because that’s what’s supposed to happen. In that universe, they fall in love.

In this universe, Zayn was in love with Harry and then he wasn’t. Just like Harry was in love with Louis and then he wasn’t. Eventually, Niall will be in love with Harry and then he won’t be. Zayn knows Liam fits in there somewhere -- they all usually end up being one way or another about each other -- Zayn reckons it’s Louis, but that’s after he leaves.

Zayn and Liam don’t keep in touch for long after he leaves. None of them do.

Knowing what’s going to happen doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Which is why Zayn hates the way Louis is looking at him. It’s not even _fair_. Louis knows exactly as much as Zayn knows in this universe, and he knows that they’re not changing this. All the fighting and complaining and bartering and begging doesn’t change _this_.

But Louis hasn’t ever been one to roll over for fate. Not in most universes, anyway.

“You’re supposed to stay with us,” Louis says, voice thick. He’s drunk, is the issue. Eyes bright, cheeks pink, on the wrong side of the bottle for this conversation to end up anyplace good. It never ends well after he’s been out with Liam.

Liam doesn’t _know_ so he wants them all to try harder. Louis is closest to Zayn, so Liam wants Louis to keep talking to Zayn. Liam wants to Louis to pry Zayn out of his head and help him sort things out.

Things are sorted. They just aren’t sorted in a way anyone will like.

“That’s the point,” Louis says. He's still trying to argue. He's always trying to argue. “That’s the whole fuckin’ point, Zayn.”

“I know,” Zayn says, even though he wants to point out that they don’t stay together in every universe. Sometimes they don’t even _meet_. Sometimes it’s two, or three, or four of them and not _all_ \--

That’s the worst part about this universe. It starts the way it’s supposed to. Their lives intersect at one point, the five of them. Doesn’t matter that Louis and Zayn are the only ones who _know_ it was supposed to happen like that. What matters is that they are together.

But then life happened, and now they’re here.

There’s a universe where Zayn never got out of bed. He wishes he were in that one instead. In that universe, none of this happens. They don’t fight because they’re not here. Because Zayn stays in Bradford, and grows up in Bradford, and comes out in sixth form. He fights and gets in trouble, and still ends up with tons of school honors anyway.

He meets Niall and Liam in uni, meets Louis working at a pub, meets Harry on a blind date.

It takes so much longer, but he thinks it’s better than this. Better than knowing how their hearts will break when he leaves. How his own heart will break.

“You don’t know, you’re not giving us a chance,” Louis snaps.

“It’s not like I’ll be gone for good,” Zayn says, keeping his voice soft. He doesn’t want to escalate this. He’s tired of raised voices and Louis’ push back.

It’s always harder when Louis is the only other one who knows. He doesn’t want the predicted outcome. He wants to change it up. He hates that Zayn is resigned to whatever predestiny they end up with.

There’s a universe where Niall knows as well. That universe is better, Zayn thinks. He settles things well and reassures Louis that they’ll all come back to each other later.

“It’s just a hiccup, babes,” Niall would say, big hand on the back of Louis’ neck whilst Louis slouched against him miserably. Niall would wink at Zayn, a quick reassurance that kept Zayn’s insides from turning to sludge.

In that universe it’s easier, Niall keeps them steady. Keeps Louis from resenting Zayn for everything he knows will happen. Keeps Zayn from going west as all his good intentions start to unravel. He doesn’t keep Zayn from leaving, but it’s enough that he knows where to find Zayn afterwards.

Without a buffer, Louis is insufferable and Zayn is insufferable right back, and Zayn reckons that’s why they don’t bother falling in love with each other in this universe.

“If you want to leave, you should stay gone,” Louis says meanly.

There’s a universe where Zayn strides across the hotel room and grabs Louis, and kisses him. Kisses the anger right out of him. That’s what he wants, so Zayn gives it to him. Shuts Louis up with his mouth and strips him out of his clothes, gives Louis a reason to write ‘Love You Goodbye’ that night.

But in that universe Louis is in love with Zayn already, he’s just waiting for Zayn to catch up.

In this universe, Louis still hasn’t admitted that to himself. Or maybe he needs to miss Zayn more to realize it. Whatever it is, Zayn knows it won’t get them anywhere so he doesn’t bother trying.

There’s a phantom part of him that aches to do it anyway, but he knows how this plays out.

It doesn’t happen tonight, or tomorrow, or next week. It takes a bit to make the decision. Louis watches him every step of the way. They ping-pong between best of friends and hating how it ends. They talk about it, and they fight about it. Louis cries on Zayn’s shoulder at some point in Asia. Zayn is tired throughout. Exhausted, really.

There’s a universe where it’s March 25th, 2015 and they’re lying on their backs in the grass watching the stars against the inky black sky. In that universe they don’t have the music, or the other boys. They don’t have much. Neither of them _know_ , but they know they have each other for a reason, and having Louis is enough for Zayn.

In that universe, Louis tangles their hands together and asks Zayn if he believes in fate. Zayn does, always has, but he tells Louis ‘no’ anyway. If he admits to believing it, then it’s like he doesn’t have a choice -- doesn’t have a choice when it comes to what he’s doing, or will do, or has done. In that universe, Zayn strongly believes in the ability to choose his path in life.

In this universe, Zayn knows he doesn’t have a choice.

In this universe, it takes ages for Louis to come back to him. Months gone ignoring Zayn whilst Louis resents the cycle they’re both trapped in -- they’re _all_ trapped in. So much time spent apart. _Wasted_ on hating a destiny he can’t hope to change.

“Thought maybe if I reacted differently, it could be different,” Louis admits, once they’re talking again. Once Zayn’s sold his place in London and they both only see each other when they’re in LA. Curled up on Zayn’s couch in a overly large pullover looking right home.

Where he’s meant to be, Zayn thinks.

“That’s what you were supposed to do,” Zayn says. These conversations are so tiring. “You don’t get to decide.”

There’s a universe where Zayn scoots closer and tucks Louis into his side. A universe where he’s brave and kisses Louis. A universe where there’s a soft fumbling through apologies, where they try to stop hurting each other. A universe where Zayn is more optimistic and Louis is less jaded, and they make it work.

In this universe, none of that happens.

Zayn smokes Louis out and they talk about anything other than the endless possibilities, and permutations of possibilities, stretching out around them. They both know what _could_ happen -- what _is_ happening somewhere else to other versions of themselves -- but they both know that it won’t happen, not in this universe.

There’s that phantom ache again, as Zayn watches Louis smoke with a lazy smile. There’s that longing he gets, knowing what he does -- knowing what they both know... The knowledge of something that isn’t his and is his at the same time. Something that _can’t_ be his and will always be his.

 _Eventually_ , Zayn thinks.

Eventually, they’ll be in a universe where everything goes right.

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog on tumblr](http://queerlyalex.tumblr.com/post/167170892177/buy-your-love-by-playing-make-believe)


End file.
